Why Self-Love is Not a Magic Pill
Pick up any self-help book or listen to any motivational speaker, and they will tell you that you need to love yourself as if your life depended on it. They will try to teach you to be your own source of love because until you love yourself, you will not be able to accept the love that comes your way. They will tell you how self-love is the magic pill and once you learn how to love yourself, warts and all, your life will magically transform. Well, they are right. But only partially.
What they don’t tell you is that ceaseless self-love is unattainable. It is impossible to love yourself through all of your choices. You cannot love yourself, for example, when you wittingly or unwittingly inflict pain on others. You cannot love yourself when you make a difficult life choice, and it ends up being the wrong one. Or when it is the right choice, but there are collateral damages. You cannot love yourself when you sabotage your success or fail to live up to your potential. At times, it is even irrational to do so. It would be borderline narcissistic to love yourself no matter what you do or fail to do.
Some years ago, I was grieving the demise of a family member when an acquaintance of mine asked me if I was all right. In a moment of vulnerability, I ended up opening up about my grief. From the deafening silence that followed came the realisation that I had shared more than was appropriate. I had violated someone’s emotional boundaries. In addition to my grief, I was then struggling with feelings of regret over not being able to keep my emotions in check. At that moment, I was incapable of loving myself. Had someone told me I should love myself regardless, I would have exploded in anger.
During times like this, self-love is inconceivable. So what do you do when you can no longer fall back on self-love? Do you wallow in guilt for failing to love yourself?
Knowing that you don’t have to love all of your choices but can extend some compassion to the person who made these choices takes away much of that guilt. Rather than beating yourself up for making mistakes (aka being human) and not being able to love your mistakes, it is better to show yourself some kindness. When another person is struggling with feelings of guilt or regret, we empathise with them. Why can’t we cultivate the same empathy and compassion for ourselves?
People keep talking about how self-love is essential, which it is. But self-love is incomplete without self-compassion. And in the absence of self-love, self-compassion becomes all the more crucial.
So when you are not happy with your life choices, it can be absurd to tell yourself that you love yourself regardless of what you did or did not do. It can be harmful too, as it can keep you from some much-needed self-reflection and improvement. But what you can do is treat yourself with a bit of compassion until you can love yourself again. You can hold in tenderness the person who tried to do their best based on the information and understanding that was available to them.
When I look back at the life I have lived so far, I have a lot to be proud of. But my reflection is coloured with a tinge of regret. At times, I have hurt people. I have lashed out in anger and regretted it immediately. I have bottled up my anger and suffered in silence. I have said too much at times and not enough at others. I have caused others pain by failing to see their perspective. I have also been unfair to myself by downplaying my feelings to keep others happy. I have been unkind to others and unkind to myself. In short, I have been human. I have not always loved myself for the choices I have made. But I have greatly wisened up over the years. Now I know that when I feel unworthy of my love is precisely when I deserve an abundance of my compassion.
